Wriing Stories

Good fiction is just good storytelling of a good story. It's not about good "writing". The "style" of writing is not the goal. Readers won't be captured for long because of the writing style. In fact, the style, if too obvious can be distracting.

John Grisham is a terrific storyteller, but his writing style is not very distinctive. Surely he cultivated this lack of distinctiveness on purpose. His brilliance is in the way he tells stories. The foundation is of course his writing style, but the point is, the style is receded. The story is the focus.

Writing is not about the words on the paper but about the scenery and events that the reader builds up in their mind as they read. 

So writers need to be careful not to burden the reader with too many details that the scene in their mind becomes burdensome. Detail that brings new enlightenment to the reader is often welcome. When a character enters a building, saying something informative about the uniqueness of the building can be satisfying for the reader. Here I refer to informative that is factually true in the real world. 

Even if the building is completely fictional, the writer may refer to its (fictional) architect as someone influenced by a certain non-fictionaly style or culture, and the idea behin that style, and therefore this building, like other buildings influenced by that style, has this certain feature. The reader then files away this information and is delighted when they do encounter in their real world that certain style in a certain building. One simple but overused example, is the fact that in some countries, Hong Kong for example, buildings don't have a "4th floor" (the floors go: ground, one, two, three, five,...)

The reader is engaged when the story brings them to a scenario where a character encounters something new to the reader. 

The readers is fascinated -- "This is new to me. How will this character intaract with this scenario? How will normal characters interact with this scenario?"

The read is also engaged when the story brings them to a scenario where the reader has themselves been before. 

The reader is again fascinated -- "How will this character react to the scenario? Is that how I could have reacted? Why didn't I?". In this case, where the reader has actual experience, the writer is very much at risk of being caught. When they make up things that is so different from actual reality, the reader gets bummed. "That's not really how it is. This writer has never been there."

There are other writers with a distinctive style. Tom Wolfe, Carl Sagan, both are very identifiable. But even for them, the style is just the vehicle for the stories they are telling. 

It's what you know that ain't so, Mark Twain reminds us. But in my experience, also, "It's what you know that you don't do". Or, as Mao Tse Tung reportedly said, "To know and not to use, is not yet to know"

Nitin Nohria's Formula for Change

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/change-formula-nitin-nohria-envie/

It feels somewhat sickening to realise halfway through that what you are reading, no matter how well written, is AI-generated. Soon the only way to know if something you are consuming is not AI-generated is to talk to a person face to face. Maybe generative AI will bring back people to normal social skills.

Reading notes 'Clear Thinking'

 Reading notes on 'Clear Thinking' by Pherson, Donner, and Gnad.

Chapter 2

System 1 thinking reaches judgment quickly and effortlessly. It is simplistic processing. It is more prone to unconscious errors. Heuristics help but can also introduce misinterpretations. System 1 operates automatically and quickly. You do not summon it.

System 2 kicks in when we need to think deliberately. It is slow thinking.

The brain is a collection of neurons (which hold memory), connected by synapses. Synapses are dynamic.They constantly build, rebuild. The more frequently we access memory in a neuron, the stronger the synapses linked to it become. The stronger the connection, the faster we can retrieve the memory. The more frequent a neuron is accessed, the synapses connected to it become wider, like the growth of a tamped path into a highway.

Neuronal plasticy means the brain physically changes.

Intuition is recognition of a pattern we have seen before. Ween we have stored a train of thought a certain way, it becomes difficult to retrieve this information in some other way.

This fixed arrangement is called a schema. We have innumerable schema. Examples of schemas include: appropriate foods for breakfast. Where to eat breakfast in the house, how to write a complex report.

System 1 is is our interpretation of reality. It is how we perceive our environment.

System 2 kicks in when we do not automatically have an answer to a problem, an we are aware that we do not.

My own example: if you meet a tiger in the forest, you immediately seek cover. This is system 1 in action. After you have successfully found saftey, you begin to think of how to get out of this situation with the tiger still lurking. This is system 2, especially when you have not been in this situation before.

Analysis work often means coming to conclusions while working with incomplete data. System 1 is very proficient in recognising patterns but often jumps to conclusions prematurely.

System 1 does not present alternatives it rejected.

(Note: System 1 sounds very similar to AI when it fills in incorrect information)

Reflection on Roger Schank's 'Expectation Failure'. Schank suggests that learning is achieved through expectation failure. You have a mental model for how something works, then you encounter an event or data that breaks your mental model. You incorporate that new information and adjust your mental model. 

The strongest way to learn is to have a hypothesis and then act on it. For example, knowing how a saw works in your head and then actually using a saw to cut wood and realising it's rather hard to cut perfectly straight. 

A weaker version of expectation failure is encountering new information you were not looking for. For example, reading leisurely about France and learning that it was called Gaul in ancient times.

The implication is that the learning by doing is a far more effective way of learning than reading and absorbing facts. Unused facts dissipate from memory far more quickly.

Two of the best aphorisms that conveys the truth of this world:

Time and tide wait for no man. The world keeps moving on. It won't wait for you. Don't waste time. Opportunities come and go. They won't wait for you. Someone else may spot them and grab them. Be ready to grab opportunities. 

You go to war with the army you have. War (any undesirable circumstance) occurs. They are inevitable. You are forced deal with them with the capabilities you have available, so always be building up your capabilities. It's also a reminder that the way you should engage the 'war' reflects the capabilities you have, not the capabilities you wish you had. Be practical and realistic, know yourself and your capabilities.

WIN - A Formula for Success

W stands for 'will'. An indomitable will is sometimes required. If there's a will there's a way. A willingness to succeed. Ambition. 

I stands for 'intelligence'. This covers the ability to think strategically, skills and capabilities to do something. To pick the right objectives, the right paths.

N stands for 'negotiation'. This covers the social ability to navigate with and through people. You cannot achieve much by yourself.  Eg you want to be a successful writer? You still need to work with people.

 Are certfications valuable? Consider how many cybersecurity certifications are available. Yet hackers and scammers do not have to acquire certifications to achieve their capabilities. 

When you try to apply guidances and frameworks from books and struggle to make them work in the real world, consider this perspective: the guidance you find in books are merely guides to touch up and polish what you need to do. They cannot contain everything you need to do. But they do provide advise that helps you polish what you need to do. Whoever wrote the book you are reading doesn't know your particular circumstance, so they absolutely cannot provide specific advice. But they can provide general advice. The value of knowledge contained in books is they expose you to ideas and experience that others have encountered and learned. It is still up to you to apply them appropriately to your situation.